


the broken arms of the sycamore tree

by ikuzonos



Series: DR: TTNH Side Stories [8]
Category: DR: TTNH, Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikuzonos/pseuds/ikuzonos
Summary: 7113/33259.TTNH Finale Spoilers.
Series: DR: TTNH Side Stories [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700629
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	the broken arms of the sycamore tree

**Author's Note:**

> don't really remember writing this one!
> 
> Content warnings: Emotional/physical abuse, Emi Nagano

There is a dead body at her feet. It is the fifteenth one she has seen today, and the first one she is responsible for.

Silently, she kneels down beside him. His eyes are still open, stretched wide in horror in his final bow. An actor on a stage nobody else can see. With a fluid motion, she removes his cracked glasses and closes his eyes with her fingers.

This is the third time he’s swung a sledgehammer at her face. This is the first time she’s managed to dodge. She supposes that she’s earned the right to change the ending this time.

The murder weapon lies on the lobby floor, beside its final victim. A sledgehammer, taken from the very back of the storage room. It’s stained with blood and regret. How many lives has it taken, total?

She can’t remember. It’s getting harder and harder to put all the pieces back together. Her fragments have been shattered far too many times.

It doesn’t matter. None of what she’s musing over matters in the least. She is alone in the hotel, yet again. This must be a new record. 

Her throat is burning. There are fifteen corpses in this hotel, and she wishes she could be one of them. 

(This is the curse of knowing too much. Somewhere, very far away, the world is ending.)

Kazue Kanagaki sits on her knees, unable to shed even a single tear for her fallen peers. There is no point. Why pretend to grieve for a lineup of marionettes, with no audience to speak of? She’s past the point of performing for herself.

She’s tired. She’s seven thousand cycles in, and every day feels like fighting a war. Each reset, a new timeline. A new life. The weight piles on, and she is left with nothing but aches and pains in every part of her miserable body.

But most especially her heart. The sacred art of damaging such a vital organ in just the right way, to keep her alive, but only just, is something the simulation is most skilled at.

She wants to forget. She wants to go back to sleep. The world is cruel and unforgiving, and she will not get anything she wants.

Her stomach churns. This feels like the part where she throws up.

The front doors fly open and tears instantly well in her eyes as she snaps up to look. There’s someone standing in the doorway, their figure obscured by shadow. She tries to struggle to her feet, but her body is too weak.

The flood of relief that there is another survivor of this cycle, that she is not alone in the world, dries up as she registers the sound of stilettos clicking on the marble tile, and it sinks in who she is alone with.

Emi Nagano calmly walks up to her, her eyes as cold as the winter that ruined Kazue’s life. Without a word, she grabs Kazue’s chin and forcibly tilts it up so that they are looking into each other’s eyes.

They do not speak. Emi digs her nails into Kazue’s cheeks. It doesn’t feel real yet. She shouldn’t be here. Perhaps this is nothing more than a very bad dream.

“Poor little angel,” Emi tuts. Her face betrays no emotion whatsoever. For once, not even the trace of a smirk dances on her lips. She’d almost prefer that cockiness over the current grim neutrality. “You’re so alone.”

Kazue’s throat is tight and her mouth is a deserted wasteland. Emi is gripping her hard enough to draw blood. That’s no surprise. She should hope that her punishment is something so meagre. This woman has done so much worse.

“Stand up,” Emi says. When Kazue stays kneeling on the floor, she jerks her hand in such a manner that forces her to get to her feet. Her knees shake when she does, as though she’d collapse on the spot if Emi wasn’t holding her by the chin. “That’s better. I would like a cup of tea.”

It’s an order. When Emi lets go of her face, Kazue stumbles towards the restaurant, trying not to look at the corpses that are slumped over some of the tables. Everything smells like iron and blood.

The kitchen is no better, but there are no dead bodies to creep around, so Kazue resigns herself to finding the kettle and filling it with water. Emi is standing in the doorway, so she can’t afford to get it wrong.

(Seven thousand lifetimes, and she’s still exactly where she started.)

As the water boils, Kazue finds the teapot and places three bags of chamomile inside it. Emi drinks it strong, with nothing at all to dilute the taste. When that is set up, she finds a mug and waits.

The kettle wails, and Kazue pours it into the teapot. It’ll still be a few minutes before it’s ready to serve. Steeping takes time. Emi waits in the doorway for all of it. The smell of chamomile is thick in her nose, and it makes every part of her body ache. She’d prefer blood.

“Pour yourself a cup too,” Emi says when Kazue finally decides it’s time. She walks back into the restaurant, her heels clicking as she does. Kazue gags, but finds a second mug and does so. 

Nothing she could add to the cup would make the feeling of drinking it any better, so Kazue brings out two mugs of chamomile tea and hopes that she’ll die before she finds Emi again.

Fate, of course, refuses to be kind to her. Emi has chosen a small table near the door, one thankfully devoid of any dead peers. Kazue sets down the mugs and sits in the seat across from her. She doesn’t dare sip her tea until Emi does.

Emi inhales slowly as she drinks, one finger raised in thought. “Satisfactory.”

Well, it means that she’s not going to hit her, so Kazue counts it as a victory and has a sip from her own mug. It tastes like agony, betrayal, and wet grass. Par for the course.

Emi taps her fingers on the table. “Quite the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. How are you going to make it up to me?”

“I’m sorry,” Kazue answers automatically. It’s the first thing she’s said in hours. She fell silent after discovering the first body with a smashed in face, knowing what was ahead for her. For everyone.

Emi sighs. “It’s going to be hard convincing me to forgive you. You’re such a problem child, you know? Your mother is going to give up on you sooner or later.”

Kazue sips her tea. She’s sat in this trap before. She knows to wait it out.

“I’m the only person who cares about you,” Emi says plainly, holding her mug with one hand. “And it’s an exhausting job. Do you have any idea how much work you make me do?”

“I’m sorry,” Kazue says again, bowing her head and not meeting the woman’s piercing green eyes. “Please forgive me. I’ll do anything.”

Emi laughs. “Anything? Well, little angel, perhaps I’ll be kind enough to let you meet God.”

Kazue drops her mug. It lands on the table with a sickening crack, but she ignores it as she hugs her arms to her chest in a desperate attempt to control her breathing. Already, her vision is flashing and her heart is thumping so fast that it threatens to choke her.

Emi continues to drink her tea. Tears well in Kazue’s eyes until she’s heaving sobs and trying her absolute hardest to keep her head on straight. Everything is happening too quickly, too sharply, too devastatingly, and all at the end of a very long tunnel.

“That’s enough,” Emi says at last, setting her mug on the table. “I forgive you.”

It’s not quite enough to bring Kazue back to the surface. Her head is pounding and her lungs feel like they might collapse. Still, even as her vision blurs and her mouth dries, she does her best to meet Emi’s eyes and nod.

(How cruel is it that her daughter inherited her cold, critical stare?)

“Sweet angel,” Emi purrs. It’s sickly sweet. Like molasses. Like a spider web.

(And perhaps it’s good fortune that the girl inherited nothing more.)

Silently, Kazue removes her watch and snaps the face in half. On cue, the world trembles and blurs, and Kazue relishes in the clouded feeling for the first time in her life.

Emi doesn’t miss a beat, and in her last second of free will before the universe disintegrates, breaks her mug on Kazue’s face.

* * *

She wakes, and her face is burning. As she stands, she attributes it to the hot sun. There is nothing else that would cause such a sensation.

She’s on a hill in the middle of nowhere. There are fifteen other people lying down nearby, all either passed out or disoriented. She is fine. She is capable. That is the role of a mercenary.

Her eyes catch on a small girl with red brown hair, and for one millisecond, her heart is swamped with agony. It turns to apathy a second later.

Kazue Kanagaki has no reason to find herself concerned with whoever that may be, because she cares for no one at all.

Not even herself.

* * *

_ 7113/33259. _


End file.
